Penny for her Thoughts
by kd-walker684
Summary: It is the first of November. Last night was Halloween. Last night was the night my best friend killed herself.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This started out as an original story, but a friend told me I should change the character names and make it a Spashley fic. She was probably kidding, but I thought it was a good idea. Anyway, just tell me what you think.**

Penny for Her Thoughts

It starts tonight at midnight. She was never much of a daytime person, so I'm waiting. Waiting, because she never could. She could never wait around for happiness. She decided to chase after it, but she went about it in the wrong way.

It is the first of November. Last night was Halloween. Last night was the night my best friend killed herself.

I know what you're thinking. Oh, poor kid. Right? Right, well I don't need your pity yet because it hasn't exactly hit me. I mean, I saw her. I saw her in that bathtub the same time that her sister did. I should've reacted the same way that her sister did. But I couldn't—I just couldn't bring myself to cry for a girl I didn't know anymore.

The memorial starts tonight at midnight. Be there.

-

Once, back in junior high, she saved my life. That was before we really cared about each other as anything more than fellow human beings. It might be a funny story to tell, if I didn't have a scar on my forearm from her claw-like fingernails, and if she hadn't died last night. But it's not like you see the scar, and it's not like _you _knew her before she died, so I'll tell it anyway, and I hope you laugh.

Please laugh.

We were having one of those awful pep rallies in the gym, and of course, back then, she was on the cheerleading squad, and I was in pep band. Much to my misfortune, I played the tuba. I really should have been paying closer attention to that huge chunk of brass, but really, what could happen to a tuba? You should probably ask Brittney Jenkins that question. She is the one who knocked my tuba over, after all, which sent me running in a frantic haze down the bleachers, which led to me falling down the bleachers, which led to a dogpile of band geek, tuba, and cheerleaders on the gym floor.

Guess who broke my fall?

Needless to say, Spencer Carlin didn't exactly love me back then, and I have two fishhook shaped scars on my arm to prove it. In the dogpile, she claimed to be suffocating, and she claimed it was my fault. So she clawed her way out. That's how Spencer always dealt with things. Clawed her way out.

-

Obviously this book is already screwed up, because I'm having to tell Spencer's story instead of my own, and I started with what should've been the ending. Anyway, I'm just warning you now. Don't expect a happy ending from this book, but don't expect a sad one. Don't expect tragedy, don't expect comic relief. Well, maybe you should expect a little bit of that last one. But my point is that I don't know what to expect from this book. Neither should you.

I guess it's also pretty screwed up that I'm expecting you to care that Spencer killed herself, but you know nothing about her other than the fact that she should probably trim her fingernails. So you want to know about her?

Here it goes.

-

She dyed her hair once a month. Every third Monday of the month, she dyed her hair and cut it in a different style. Always. That was the only thing she ever did like clockwork. Clockwork wasn't for Spencer. Not that it was for me, either. I wasn't thrilled about living the same life everyday—but remember, this isn't about me.

Spencer.

She was five feet, four inches tall. She was skinny. She was one of those girls whose bones poked out because of the lack of meat attached, but she was also one of the girls who everybody wanted to be. To be honest, even I wanted to be Spencer Allyn Carlin at some point in time. A very small point in time, but a point all the same.

She wore knee-length cargo shorts a lot, with big pockets and Velcro, and she got away with the school's usually strict "no tank tops" dress code. That wasn't the only rule she broke, but I'm trying to make you like her, not be scared of her, so I'll keep a few things to myself for a while. Just for a little while though. Don't lose your patience just yet.

Like I said, Spencer used to be a cheerleader, but that ended in ninth grade when the school got rid of the cheerleading program. Most of the former cheerleaders stopped participating in athletics altogether and got fat and started partying. Spencer joined the dance team, the volleyball team, the color guard, and the chess team. But she was already into partying, so not much changed there. She played the piano, too, but I was the only one besides her parents and her teacher who ever knew that. And she liked to fly kites. Climb trees. Run through cotton fields when nobody was around. Yeah, she was crazy.

That's what they're going to think now, anyway.

-

Spencer and I knew each other for a while before we considered each other friends. She moved to my town in fifth grade, and _everybody _knew her. But I generally wasn't friends with the people at my school. I had a lot of friends from the next town over, Mountain Home, from my softball team, and I really wasn't interested in talking to anyone else. It's probably a good thing that Spencer decided to become a bigger part of my life when she did, because I quit softball shortly after that and was left with no other friends.

For freshman year, I was the art teacher's aide in fourth period Drawing I, which Spencer ended up taking, much to her displeasure. I really didn't do much as the aide, other than wash paint brushes and do inventory on supplies every once in a while. So Montgomery, the art teacher, had me help out some students who would've failed otherwise. Spencer was one of those students, but she didn't really care.

On one of the first days in class, I sat beside her at one of the big black drawing tables and asked if she needed help with the still life she was working on. She said yes, of course, so I did my best to help. I tried telling her that she was drawing what she knew instead of what she saw, which is why her picture of a bowl full of apples looked more like a poorly drawn cartoon rather than what it was. But Spencer wasn't an artist, and she didn't claim to be, so I tried not to hold her accountable for the fact that the sketch in front of us was absolutely terrible. She was staring at the paper for longer than it should take to realize how bad it was, but I really didn't know what to say to bring her out of her daze. So I tried using my artistic charm and sketched out a penny on a scrap of paper.

"Penny for your thoughts?" I asked, making her jump and glance my way.

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about how much I hate this class." She laughed and started sketching again. "I don't even have any friends in here."

When I was silent, she apologized quickly. "Sorry. I've never talked to you much before. I didn't know if you'd consider us friends or not."

"No." I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth and made a clicking noise. "No, I wouldn't."

"But we could be, right?"

"Yeah, I'm sure we could be."

"Good. Now, how about you turn me into da Vinci or Picasso or someone equally brilliant in art?"

"I might be able to manage Andy Warhol, if you get a sex change." I smiled and hoped she knew who Andy Warhol was.

She didn't. Oh God, she had no clue who Andy Warhol was. I couldn't help but laugh. Poor girl. Before we could make much progress, the bell rang. I stood to leave, not really planning on saying goodbye, but she grabbed my arm to stop me.

"Well, Ashley, if we're going to be best friends, we're going to have to exchange phone numbers."

Best friends? I was pretty sure I had never signed up for that, but I gave her my number anyway.

That was my first mistake, if I ever made one. I'm not sure if I ever did.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I took this story down about six months ago because I didn't feel like updating it. But now, I'm writing more, so I figured I'd try to post it again. Hope you guys like it.

Chapter Two

Spencer and I were sitting in her living room the Friday night after we exchanged numbers. She was biting the tough skin around her thumb as one of the scarier scenes in the movie we were watching flashed before our eyes. Neither of us had said a word since the movie started, but she wanted to. Every so often, she'd pull her thumb away from her mouth and open it to say something, look my way, but she didn't break the silence. The television was the only light in the room until Spencer's phone started vibrating and flashing on the coffee table. She hit the "Ignore" button and cleared her throat.

"I hate this movie," she said without taking her eyes off the screen.

I nodded once to agree and smiled as she took the remote and turned the DVD off. "Let's just talk."

So we talked.

"I've always wanted one of those friends who I can spend all of my time with," she said suddenly. "I mean, it's not like I haven't had friends all of my life, because I have. That's not the problem. The problem is that they're friends who want to talk about shallow stuff all the time. Like make-up and clothes and what they're doing over the weekend. A while back, I tried hanging out with guys, but all they seemed to know about was girls and sex and sports. I know that's stereotyping and I know it's wrong to do that, but I haven't been able to find anyone different than that."

"Yeah." Okay, Ashley, I said to myself. This girl just poured her heart out to you, and all you say is _Yeah_? Try again. "I know what you mean. I've always felt like nobody wants to talk about _real_ stuff. It's always about joking around or gossiping."

"Exactly. Nobody our age ever seems to _think_ anymore."

"It's too much work," I said with a smile.

"Apparently so." Spencer paused and stared at me, bit her lip for a second. She sighed, took in a deep breath, held it in for a moment, and sighed one more time. "Tell me something about yourself."

"Something about...myself?"

"Yeah, tell me something that you don't say every day. Something you think about but keep to yourself."

God, what could I tell her? There was so much I was keeping inside, so much I had never trusted anyone with. So without even asking myself for permission, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "My parents..."

"Yeah?" Spencer asked. "What about them?"

"They're not my real parents," I began, but I wasn't sure where to go next.

"So you're adopted? That's cool."

"Not really. I mean, I'm not really adopted. My parents are really my grandparents. My dad's parents."

There she went, biting her lip again. "So where are your real parents then?"

"My dad is dead now, but before that, he was a musician. My mom got divorced and remarried by the time I was a year old." I was speaking less loudly now, and Spencer was scooting closer to hear me.

"What happened?"

I squirmed in my seat a bit and hugged my knees to my chest. I let my chin rest on my knees and looked away from Spencer' eyes as I spoke. "My mom cheated on my dad from the day they got married until they finally got divorced, seven years later. He knew about it the whole time, but he loved her so he kept her around. When she had me and was still seeing that guy, he got rid of her. Sent her off with her lover, told her if she wanted less than a real husband then she didn't deserve one. When I was a few months old, he realized he couldn't take care of me and Kyla on his own, so he left us with our grandparents. He was going to spend a few months on tour to make some money and then come back to get us after he had some cash saved up. But he fell in love with the atmosphere on the road; plus, my grandparents wouldn't have been able to give us up even if he wanted them to."

"Wow."

"Yeah." I could've stopped talking then, but for some reason I didn't. "It's kind of funny, because Kyla is old enough to remember our real parents, so calls our grandparents Granddad and Gram. But they're the only parents I've ever known, so I call them Mom and Dad."

"Ashley."

Why did my name sound so _different_ coming from her?

"Ashley," she said again, a little louder this time. "I don't mean to sound like my therapist, but...well...how do you feel about that?"

I shrugged apathetically. "How am I supposed to feel about it?"

"Well," she began, and I could tell she had something worth saying. "I would feel loved."

"Oh yeah? Why?"

"Because you know that your grandparents loved you enough to keep you around. They love you enough to consider you their daughter. And before your dad got distracted by his life as a musician--," pause, smile, "he cared enough for you to leave you with good people like your grandparents."

I eyed her suspiciously. "How do you know so much about this?"

"Well, I was adopted. My brothers and I were."

"Really? I never knew that."

"You never asked."

That was Spencer's philosophy: if you don't set out to find an answer, you'll never learn the truth.

-

Spencer and I rode bicycles a lot. Or, well, we rode one bicycle. I pedaled and she rode on pegs. She said she liked to feel the wind in her face.

Once, we were riding and this guy, Aiden, was sitting on the curb in front of his apartment. We passed by him and Spencer told me not to stare at him. If we stared, he'd cause trouble, she said.

"You don't want Aiden to cause trouble," she whispered into my ear. I didn't question her, but I couldn't help but glance Aiden's way for a little more than a second. He picked up a rock that had sat at his feet and bounced it at us. It hit the back tire, almost hit Spencer's foot, but missed it. I pedaled off faster and made a mental note to ask Spencer about Aiden later on.

"I told you not to look at him," Spencer scolded as we turned the corner and away from Aiden.

"You told me not to _stare._ I didn't stare," I corrected bitterly. "I barely even glanced."

We reached our stopping point, the city park, so I slowed to a stop. Spencer climbed off the bicycle and hung her helmet on the handbar next to mine. "The point is that you looked at him. And since _you_ were with _me_, it was basically like_ I _looked at him. You should know by now that _I'm_ not allowed to look at Aiden."

"You're not allowed, huh?" I chuckled at the seemingly mock-seriousness in her tone. _Obviously_ she was joking, right? "That sounds like a bit of a stretch."

She pursed her lips and started walking away, towards her favorite set of swings. It was the more rusted, more dilapidated of the two swing sets, which meant nobody but she and I ever wanted to play on it. "It's not a stretch, Donovan," she said when she was sure I was behind her.

"Then what is it?"

"Aiden and I go back."

"How far back?"

"Farther than I like to remember."

That was probably the moment I set out to find the answer. I was going to learn the truth.

-

Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this, because I wasn't there. I didn't see it firsthand. But Spencer told me about it and I trust her, even now that she's dead. So I'll tell you, but don't let it change things. Don't let it make you love her any less than you already do. I know you do.

There was a party down the road from Spencer's house one night. It was a few weeks after we had started hanging out more, and though she had invited me and begged me to go several times, I thoughtlessly declined the invitation. I now know that I should have gone. I should have been there with her, because if I had been there, she wouldn't have made a fool of herself the way she did. I would have stopped her.

She drank more than she should have. She shouldn't have drank at all, but I made her promise before she went to the party that she wouldn't drink more than she could handle. It was one of the first promises to me she ever broke, and I'm not sure I've forgiven her for it. But like I've tried to convince myself and you from the beginning: this is Spencer's story, not mine. It would be so much easier to tell mine.

Anyway, she drank more than she should have, and she ended up swallowing twelve Ibuprofen. She called me and had me and Kyla pick her up to take her to the hospital, but she didn't tell us what was wrong. She just kept saying, over and over again, that she drank too much.

"Yeah, Spence, I kind of got that," I said more than once. I felt irritated and betrayed, but that didn't stop me from holding her hair as she threw up in the backseat of Kyla's car. It definitely didn't stop me from praying to the God that I _hoped_ existed that she really had just drank too much, and it was nothing more than that. It was more than that.

That night should have been a sign to all of us, but it really just clued me in on the fact that even though she seemed perfect, she wasn't. And maybe, since my way of telling stories isn't the greatest, you've known all along that she wasn't perfect. I hope that's the way it is, because that will cause you a little less heartache by the end of it all.


	3. Chapter 3

We realized we were soulmates almost immediately. It wasn't a hard idea to accomplish at all. She was just easy to get to know; she didn't hold much back. I tried to be the same way. That's not how it had always been, but she was good at getting information out of me when she wanted to, which was most of the time. To be honest, I really didn't mind telling her anything at all. I would've told her everything if she had cared enough.

I'm sure she did, she just had a hard time letting me know it.

-

Right now I'm walking around the town. I would be riding my bike, but I left it at Spencer's house last night. Right after the police got there, I took off running. Forgot my bike. _Our_ bike. We had saved up together to get a new one after the "crash" we had two years ago. But as I said, I'm walking around, just waiting.

Waiting.

It's ten o'clock. From what Spencer's brother Glen said through the last text message he sent me, there are already people crowding around the city park for the memorial service. I could be there right now, but I'm not. Spencer wouldn't want me there. She wouldn't want me to feel suffocated and uncomfortable any longer than I needed to.

I need to run. I need to run through a freaking cotton field, but I won't without her. I could. I could because she gave me permission, but I won't.

-

"Penny for your thoughts?" She asked one day in Drawing class. I was supposed to be helping her with her shading technique, but I didn't feel like it at all. So I was just sitting beside her with my head down on the table. She was, at first, ignoring me altogether. But when it became apparent that something was wrong with me, she couldn't stop herself from trying to get information out of me.

She poked me in the side, over and over again, and swore she wouldn't stop until I told her what was wrong. As it became more obvious that I wasn't exactly bothered by her poking antics, she took my pen (strike one) and started drawing on my forearm (strike two), just above the scars she had left behind the year before in the pep rally incident (strike three.)

I should've lost my cool, right there in the middle of the art class. And if she had been anyone other than Spencer, I probably would've. But it was Spencer, and she knew I wouldn't try to fight her back.

"Come on, Ashley," she pleaded with me. "What's wrong with you today?"

"Nothing is wrong," I mumbled out to her. "Leave me alone, please."

"I know better than to leave someone alone when they're _obviously_ upset."

I wish I had known better too.

-

The air is colder than it should be. It's usually not too cold at this time of year in this part of the world, but it is tonight. She hated the cold. She hated to see her breath fogging up the space in front of her. "There are some things that are never meant to be seen," she'd said. "Breath is one of them."

It's hard to walk through the streets of this town without holding her hand, because she always made me do that when she was feeling cold or nervous, which was often. It's harder to walk through these streets knowing I'll never hold her hand again.

It's hardest of all to know the truth.

-

She always swore that the truth was the most important thing in the world. I would argue that peace was greater, hope was even better than that, and _surely_ love could surpass the rest. But now that she's gone and left some of her thoughts to me, I can see that without truth, you would never know if someone really loved you. You wouldn't know if the peace you felt was real or if it was just the calm before the storm. You wouldn't know what there was to hope for.

-

I would tell you more about the past, but it's the present at the moment, and Glen is calling me for the third time, so I'm answering it, but let me warn you, I've never liked this guy. Neither should you.

"Where the hell are you?" he says before I can even manage a "hello" or "what's up?"

"I'm on the corner of Brookshire and Camelot Road. Why do you care?"

"I don't," he spat. "Your sister is here and she says your mom wants you home. And I didn't think you'd want me to start this thing without you."

"Well, why don't you tell my sister that you're not her messenger? I'll be there later. Don't wait around for me."

I'm sure he wasn't planning on it anyway. He was less patient than his sister ever was, in the worst kind of way.

-

We were walking around the school after hours one day when she just started crying. I wasn't sure why, and I wasn't sure how I could stop it. So I just took her hand, trying to make her feel more comfortable. I guess it kind of worked, because as soon as my flesh touched hers, she took me in a neck-breaking hug. You know the kind of hug I'm talking about. She was showing me exactly how upset she was by transferring her emotional pain into my physical pain.

We stood there for a while, with my arms around her waist, and her head on my shoulder. I think it helped me as much as it helped her.

I couldn't really tell you when that day took place. It happened more than once.

-

Spencer was sometimes bad about inviting me over and then forgetting that we had plans. But that was okay; I totally understood that she had a horrible memory. Once, she told me to come over to her house so we could go fly kites, but she didn't answer the door when I knocked. Since she had given me a key a few months before and told me to let myself in if I wanted to, I slowly unlocked the door and entered the foyer.

I heard the piano being played in the study, so I figured it was Mrs. Carlin and decided I'd go listen for a minute. She loved to play for me because, as a fellow musician, I appreciated the hard work she put into her music. But as I got closer to the study, I realized it wasn't Mrs. Carlin. She only played old hymns, and this was a classical piece. Quick, precise. "The Spinning Song," if my memory serves me correctly. f

As I turned the corner into the study, I saw Spencer sitting at the baby grand. Her fingers were moving as fast as we had become friends (it was almost scary to see how bold and daring she was in nearly every part of her life.) Her eyes were closed, but I could tell her mind was far from resting, and her jaws were clenched tight as she hit the notes with certainty and audacity.

When she saw me there with a look of utmost curiosity on my face, she didn't stop playing. I had somewhat expected her to, but all I saw was a hint of disappointment in her eyes as she continued to play a song that showed anything but disappointment. As she hit the last sounding notes of the song, she looked overwhelmed with, well, I don't know. She placed her hands in her lap and stared down at them, like they had just gotten her into trouble.

"You play the piano?" It was more of a bewildered statement than a question, but she took it as a hateful interrogation and returned the answer as such.

"You just saw me play, didn't you?" she spat out bitterly.

"Hearing you was actually my first clue," I said with a smile, hoping she would lighten up.

"The fact that I play the piano," she said before pausing and thinking for a moment, "is one of the few secrets I'm keeping. The world doesn't need to know everything about me."  
I didn't bother trying to argue with her. She had said enough.

-

"Aiden was a germaphobe. He used to wash his hands twice an hour, no lie," Spencer told me one night. It was technically morning—3am, on the dot, but it wasn't an unusual occurrence for her to decide to speak about something seemingly irrelevant at such an early hour.

"Why was that?" I questioned, not even bothering to ask why she wanted to talk about Aiden just before I fell asleep.

"He thought everything was out to get him, especially things he couldn't see."

"Has he always been that paranoid?"

"Yes, he always has, as long as I've known him."

I had to wonder, just how long had she known this Aiden guy? We lived in a small town, went to a small school, and it said a lot about the guy that I didn't know his last name. He wasn't well known, which usually wasn't a good thing. But maybe, I hoped, he wasn't as bad as he seemed.

I've learned from experience that things are always worse than they seem. Always.

"I miss him, Ash," she said, minutes later.

I didn't say anything in reply. Instead, I waited until all I could hear was the clock ticking and Spencer sniffling a few feet away, either from her cold or because she was crying. It may have been because of both. Either way, I waited. I waited myself to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Sorry this is such a short chapter, but I'll post the next one soon. Thanks everyone for the reviews!

I'm sure it took a lot of strength to kill herself, but if there was one thing Spencer lacked, it was not strength. If anything, she had too much of that. At least that's the way it seemed from her outward appearance.

Twenty-four hours.

It's been twenty-four hours since she killed herself, and I miss the girl I used to know more than anything.

God, I miss her.

-

"Draw what you _see,_" the art teacher, Montgomery, was saying for the fourth time that class period. I had given Spencer that little piece of information nearly every day since we met, and it kind of bothered me to know that she was listening to him more than me. I was her best friend. He was a crummy art teacher with a ponytail and paint on his hands that he could have washed off if he had just tried. That may sound poetic to some of you, but I'm not much of a poet. I'm a novelist, which is why...well, it says a lot about me, that's all. That's all you need to know.

Her drawing had gotten better and mine had gotten worse. That's not an opinion, it's just a fact. It was a fact that I had tried to ignore, but when Montgomery was complimenting Spencer's artwork, and all I got was a pat on the back, I knew I could do better. I was always trying to push myself. I pushed myself until I couldn't push any further.

Spencer was drawing my bicycle for some reason only known to herself and God. And I was drawing her eyes. That probably seems weird and stalkerish, but she had asked me to draw them the day before. I would have been doing really good, too, if my pencil wasn't being so stubborn and if I had had enough sense to know that a piece of graphite could never capture the shade and tint of that girl's eyes. They were so _blue__._

"Are those my eyes?" she asked quietly. She was getting to be more and more quiet those days, but it didn't seem like a big deal. We were both changing. When I nodded, she locked eyes with me. "Draw what you see, Ash. Just what you see."

I wish she could look me in the eye right now. Look me in the eye and tell me that she made a mistake. She couldn't have meant to do it.

She didn't mean to do it, I swear.

-

Maybe I speak for Spencer too often.

-

I'm going to take a break for a moment, maybe for my sake, maybe for yours.

Maybe this is just another story for you to say you have read, but to me, it's not just another story. It's more than words on a page. It's Spencer's words on my page, because everything was easier on us when we worked together.

You're probably wondering—and if you're not, you should be—why I'm so concerned with writing Spencer's story rather than my own. To that question, I have to say that I only have one answer. She wanted me to.

She asked me to.

-

Back to the past. Sound good? Good.

Two years ago last night, Spencer and I went trick-or-treating. Yeah, we were total nerds, but who cares, you know? We figured it would be our last Halloween as kids. Now that I've grown up some (especially in the last day) I realize that it _was _our last Halloween as kids.

We stopped at every house on our block, except for Aiden's, and only gave up when a group of semi-hostile soccer moms with sadly similar haircuts gave us a group-wide scowl and sent us running home, laughing the whole way.

So much for being kids, right?

-

We weren't the type of girls most parents would want their children being around, but only because I wore all black and had an eyebrow ring, and Spence was viewed as a stuck-up prep to everyone but me and her dog.

Have I told you about her dog? Well, he's my dog now. I'll tell you about him soon, don't worry.

Parents didn't like us, so we really didn't have many friends besides each other. But that was fine, just fine. It was fine until last night, when I realized she needed more than what I was giving her.

I tried.


	5. Chapter 5

There are seventeen missed calls on my cell phone right now, and I have to wonder, when did people start caring about me so much? Was it when they learned that my best friend offed herself? Was it because they were all surprised that it was Spence and not me? Because I'm _obviously _the next to go by suicide, so they might as well show me some love before I croak?

-

"Oh my God, Ashley, I've been dying to tell you this, and you're ignoring me!" Spencer was irritated. It was obvious, even to me, and I wasn't even looking at her. I was concentrating on the drawing in front of me. I was still trying to get that picture of her eyes right. She seemed to think, though, that I couldn't draw and listen to her at the same time. I was listening.

"No. I heard you," I said, still refusing to look up from my drawing.

"Then look me in the eye!"

I hesitated for a moment before glancing up and locking eyes with her for no more than a second and a half. Even if she was my best friend, she was making me nervous by staring at me. I looked back down and tried to draw again, but I stopped as her hand wrapped around my wrist. My jaw tightened as I looked up at her once more, keeping eye contact for as long as she wanted this time. She was the first one to turn away, but I could tell it wasn't because she was nervous. She was upset. Terribly, distinctly upset.

My muscles loosened and I silently apologized to her for not listening the way I should have.

"I need to tell you something," she said solemnly.

Spencer, I needed to tell you a lot of things.

-

Generally, I hated movie theatres. They were overcrowded and sticky, too dark and too loud. There is something strange about sitting in a room with a hundred or more other people that you don't know, watching a movie that you don't really like. I didn't like the fact that when everyone around me laughed, I felt obligated to laugh too. And when everyone, mostly the women, started crying, I felt coldhearted when I couldn't muster up a few tears.

I tried to explain that to Spencer, but she didn't understand. "You don't like the movie theatres because you can't cry? That's a pathetic excuse. You're coming with me to a movie this weekend."

And of course, since I _was_ such a pushover, I went with her.

If I had anything to do with it, we would have watched a horror movie. But of course, I didn't have anything to do with the decision. That was left entirely up to Spencer, so we ended up watching a kids show. I don't even remember what it was called or what it was about. I just remember that we were the only two teenagers in the entire theatre, except for one of the workers, who was leaned up against the back wall with a broom in his hand. To make matters worse, it was the opening weekend for this film that was supposedly one of the biggest hits of the year, so we were squished like freaking sardines in a can between screaming kids and uptight mothers.

Halfway through the movie, some kid with a snotty nose dumped his popcorn in my lap. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I probably lost it and went off on the little kid, right?

Right.

I didn't even realize what I did until Spencer had finally succeeded in dragging me outside the theatre moments later. She was laughing hysterically, but I couldn't figure out what was so funny.

"I can't believe you did that!" she shrieked as she tugged me by the sleeve of my shirt into the bathroom to avoid the stares of all the employees.

"Did what?"

"The way you dumped your soda on that kid! That was the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life!" Spencer was turning red from laughing so hard, and without even knowing why, I started laughing too.

"Did I really do that? Holy cow, I really did," I said between spurts of laughter.

"Yeah, you did," she said after calming down a bit. She took my hand and led me, once more, into the lobby and out the doors of the theatre. "Let's ditch this place. And remind me to never take you to a movie theatre again."

-

"Someone told me once that you're not supposed to feed hamsters dairy products. Especially cheese," I told Spencer as she contemplated giving her hamster a nibble of cheddar cheese. I was lying, but she didn't know that, and I wasn't about to tell her. It wasn't like it would hurt anything to lie about it, and plus, it was too funny to watch her hesitation over something as meaningless as cheese. She glanced nervously back and forth between the cheese and the hamster, the hamster and the cheese, and then finally, contentedly, placed a very small square of cheese in the hamster's food dish.

"He'll be fine," she said, more for her sake than anyone else's, as she crawled into bed beside me and turned off the lamp on her bedside table. "He'll be fine."

Hours later, in the middle of my dream about my dad running for president, Spence woke me up by shaking my shoulders and rattling my insides around. If you've ever been woken up by being shaken, you know it's not a pleasant feeling. So I'm sure you can understand my frustration. But as soon as I saw the tears welling up in Spencer's eyes and the way her shoulders were curled over in distress, I forgot all of my worries and took up hers.

"What's wrong?" I asked urgently.

"It's Francesca."

Um. What? That is exactly what I thought and probably what I said, because she repeated herself. Obviously, the problem wasn't that I didn't hear her. The problem was that I had no clue who Francesca was.

"My hamster," she explained, as if I should have known exactly who she was talking about. "He's sick."

"He's sick? He? You seriously named a male hamster Francesca? What exactly was running through your mind when you named him that?"

"Ashley, please, just help me figure out what to do. He's sick, and I think it's because of the cheese I gave him. I should've listened to you, Ash. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me," Spencer pleaded, holding the rodent out to me. I don't know much about hamsters, but that thing was obviously sick. He was coughing or choking--I couldn't tell which--and he could barely open his eyes.

"Spencer, I don't know what to do about your hamster," I said. "She's sick, I know that much, but I don't know how to help her."

"Francesca is a _male_, Ashley."

"Right. How could I forget? Um, why don't you just put him back in his cage and pray for him to get better?" I wasn't much of a religious person, but Spencer was, and I knew that idea seemed plausible to her. "If he's not better tomorrow morning, we'll get Kyla to drive us to the vet."

That night, she cried herself to sleep. Every twenty minutes or so, she got up to check on him. "It's my fault. All my fault," I heard her say more than once.

The next morning, we woke up and found that Francesca was a female. There were like eight or nine little rats running around in her cage, and that's why she had seemed so sick. Maybe to most people, that would be very funny. But it killed me to know that I had made Spencer think she had caused her hamster pain, because Spencer was completely distraught over the matter.

-

My parents make their own pickles. To most people, that would seem totally outdated and absurd, but Spence admired their hobby, and I loved her more for that. It isn't just pickles, either—they grow their own produce, they use an old fashioned wood-burning stove to heat the house in the winter, they cut their own firewood for said wood-burning stove, and they have a dozen or more bird feeders in our backyard. Every morning, they watch the sunrise from a swing that they have in the middle of the garden, and every evening, they watch the birds at the birdfeeders, birdbaths, and birdhouses. I love them for all of that, and so did Spencer. They might as well have been her parents too. I think that in her mind and theirs, they were.

We all went on a road trip one Saturday. It was the four of us—Mom, Dad, Spencer, and me—and we had no idea where we'd end up. Not even Dad knew, and he had _always_ known what the plans were. That Saturday, there were no plans. We just woke up early, before sunrise, and piled into Mom's Lincoln Towncar. Spencer and I called it the boat, because it was as big as her aunt's pontoon, nearly.

Our final destination ended up being just beyond the middle of nowhere, where the only change in scenery for a forty mile radius was the switch from cotton fields to corn fields. We really just wanted to see the state, so none of us minded the lack of excitement. For hours, we rode in silence except for the instrumental music playing through the earbuds that Spencer and I were sharing. The whole ride was peaceful and comfortable, and if I could go back to a single day and put it on repeat, that day would be one of my top choices.

-

Another day I'd relive was the day that Spencer broke her arm on Aiden's trampoline, but right now is not the time to relive it.

-

During the summer days after ninth grade, we were only apart for seventeen days. That almost became eighteen days, after our bike crash. We weren't allowed to see each other for a week, our parents agreed. But four days into that week was my birthday. I was turning fifteen, and my parents didn't care that I would be spending the day without my best friend.

As soon as I found out about the No-Spencer rule, I planned on spending my birthday locked up in my bedroom, refusing cake and food. I was going to perform a peaceful protest to let my parents know exactly how devastated I was that Spencer and I were separated, but as soon as I woke up that morning, (I always woke up at eight a.m. on weekends and summer mornings) Mom burst into my room with the phone in her hand.

"It's Spencer," Mom said in an annoyed tone. "You have ten minutes, and then I expect the phone to be back on the hook."

I took the phone from my mother and braced myself for what I knew would be waiting for me on the end of the line. Spence had promised me a birthday song (she couldn't carry a tune in the oversized purse she insisted on lugging around) and we hadn't seen each other or spoken in four days (she usually started going crazy after being away from me for three hours.)

"Hey," I said as I put the phone to my ear.

"Hey," was the only reply I got. Don't get me wrong—I don't like people to make a big deal about my birthday, but Spencer had promised hardly anything less than a parade and fireworks. I wasn't disappointed; I was just confused.

"I have a plan," she said quietly. I could tell she was afraid her parents could hear her. Knowing Spencer, she didn't even ask for permission before calling me.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, but you're going to have to sneak out."

Um, remember how I told you that she started to go crazy without me around? Well, our parents had obviously kept us apart for way too long. She had seriously lost her mind if she thought I would sneak out of my parents' house.

I must not have said anything for a while, because Spencer cleared her throat, making me jump.

"What do you think?" she asked. "It's going to be late tonight, so you parents will be asleep for a while before you have to sneak out. You can even walk out the front door if you want, as long as Kyla doesn't rat you out, but I think it would be more fun if we climbed out the windows."

"My mom is a light sleeper, Spence," I said, trying not to disappoint her. "You know there's no way I can sneak out without her knowing."

"Ashley, it's your _birthday_. You're not going to let this day pass by without something memorable happening. As your best friend and confidante, I refuse to let you do that."

From then on, I knew Spencer was serious about it. If she refused something, she would never let up. I was just going to have to sneak out and deal with the consequences as they came my way.

-

I was just getting to the good part of that story, but my phone is ringing, and I realize now that it would probably be best to answer it to stop people from worrying about me even more.

This time it's Kyla.

"Hey, what's up?" I answer in a more pleasant tone than I've used in a long time.

"Nothing, Ash, we've just been worried about you," Kyla says, and I can tell from the fear in her voice that she means it.

"I'm fine, Ky, I swear," I tell her. "I'm just walking around town, thinking. It's a lot to take in, you know."

"Ashley, your best friend just died," she begins, and I have to bite my tongue to hold back sarcastic comments. "Don't let yourself die with her."

The phone clicks in my ear, and Kyla is gone. No goodbye, no "be home by one," or "be careful,"—she knows that I know all of that. She knows I need time.


	6. Chapter 6

It was two a.m. by the time Spencer knocked on my bedroom window. She had already my bike from the carport and had two bags—a backpack over her shoulder and her purse hanging around her neck. After I climbed out the window and gave her a hug, she shoved the backpack in my direction.

"Let's go to the old baseball field," she whispered after I had shut my bedroom window and climbed onto the bicycle. "I've got it all planned out."

I nodded and pedaled off as soon as Spence was safely perched on top of the pegs. It didn't even strike me as odd that we were going to the old baseball field until we were halfway there. But I didn't waste my breath by asking her about it, because I knew she wouldn't answer, and she probably couldn't give me much of an explanation anyway.

I reached the baseball field, which was grown up with weeds and probably housed a few snakes and gophers. Nobody uses the field anymore because a couple of years before this incident, the city got a grant to construct a huge baseball complex on the other end of town. The old field is in an area of town that holds no houses or businesses or anything important anymore, really, so people have mostly forgotten about it. The only thing that really stood out about the old field was the unused water tower behind the outfield. It wasn't as tall as the newer ones in town, but it was still taller than I liked to climb.

Speaking of climbing the water tower...

"Are you ready to climb?" Spencer questioned with a more-than-evil grin on her face.

She must have been drunk. High. Something.

"I've brought liquor, too. But we can't drink until we decide to come down. I don't want you to fall and get killed or something equally terrifying. Actually, I already drank a few shots before I got to your house, but I'm okay. I hold my liquor well."

"And I _don't_?" I posed, pretending to take offense to Spencer's rightfully made accusation.

"Of course you don't. You've never drank before," she said, as if I had just made the dumbest statement in the world. Maybe I had.

She knew me too well. I had never told her that I hadn't drank before, but I wouldn't be able to lie to her about it. She knew me way too well.

Spencer took the initiative to climb the ladder on the water tower first. I know what you're thinking—she just wanted me to catch her if she fell. But that's not true. She was the one who always caught me. She took a step, one rung at a time, and before moving up any more, she would look down at me, to make sure I was still coming. I told myself to concentrate on her instead of the ladder, and that worked in diluting my nervousness. After she reached the top and I was close behind her, she reached her hand out to me.

"Don't let go," she said, just loud enough to be heard over the wind. "I won't."

It would have been easier on both of us if we had just let go.

-

I'm sitting at the bottom of the water tower now. The wind is blowing again, and I can see our initials scratched onto one of the poles of the tower. They're backwards, so that we're the only ones who know that we signed it. _SC+ AD = best friends forever, till death do us part._

-

"There's nothing to do up here," I complained, though I should probably admit now that I was admiring the view more than I thought I would.

"Just talk to me," she said. "We never talk."

We talked all the time, but I didn't argue with her.

"What do you want to talk about?" I asked.

"Let's talk about you."

"What?"

"What's going on with you? f What have you been thinking about?"

"I've been thinking about life." I paused and took a bite out of the snack cake she had brought for me—my birthday cake. "About why we're here. I've come to a few decent conclusions."

She looked at me for a split second, then closed her eyes and leaned her head against the tank behind us. I had no clue if she planned on saying anything or not, but I really didn't want to tell her the ideas I'd had.

"Give me some Dr. Pepper," I mumbled. "I'm thirsty after that birthday cake."

"No!" Spencer shrieked and snatched the backpack away from me. "We have to use it to chase."

"Chase what?"

"The alcohol, dumbass."

Silence. I felt like an idiot. I was an idiot. After a few moments, I lay my head down on her lap. She should've known better than to keep me out this late at night.

"What are they?" she said and ran her fingers through my hair. When it became obvious that I had no clue what she was talking about, she clarified her question. "What are the conclusions you've made about life?"

"Well..."

"Well?"

"Well, I think we're here to live, love, and die. I've already lived and loved, so..."

"So you think you're ready to die, huh?" she shot, and I could tell I had struck one of her nerves. "You think you've lived? Well, let me ask you this. Have you ever run around naked? been to Paris? smoked pot with people ten years older than you?" She waited for me to answer, but I wasn't going to. The answer was no, to all of her questions. "No? Well, then, you better not even _think _about leaving me here alone on this planet until you get all of that done. What about love?"

I nodded. I had loved someone.

"Who was it?" she wasn't even questioning whether or not I was really in love. She just wanted to know who. I couldn't tell her. "They hurt you pretty bad, huh?"  
I shrugged. The pain in my eyes made it obvious that I had rather not talk about it. She nodded in understanding and stood up. She turned away from me to wipe tears from her eyes. God, she was crying and I couldn't. Pathetic, right?  
"Let's get down from here," she said as she faced me once again with a smile on her face. "It's time to drink."

-

My phone is ringing again. It's Glen.

"Hey, Ash," he says, once again preventing me from saying anything first. "I just decided to check on you. I'm sorry for the way I was acting earlier. It's just getting to me. You know how it is."

"Yeah, don't worry about it. I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"Yeah. Yeah, alright. Take care of yourself and don't do anything Spencer would do."

"Fine," I manage to say before ending the call and turning off my phone.

-

"Take a shot," Spencer commanded as the shot glass full of vodka dangled loosely from her fingertips, like drinking alcohol wasn't a big deal. Maybe it wasn't to her. To me, it was a big deal. She knew that, but she wanted to make it easier on me to drink for the first time.

"I can't, Spence," I groaned and leaned forward. We were sitting cross-legged in front of each other in between first and second base on the old baseball field. Our knees were touching slightly and her hand was resting on my leg. Her other hand still held the shot glass. She was pushing it closer towards me.

"Take a shot," she repeated. "It's no big deal. Seriously. Just drink."

"I don't know _how_," I whispered.

She laughed. It wasn't a mocking sort of laugh, or a cruel laugh of any sort. She was just amused by the fact that I was different than she was. I knew that laugh extremely well. "You don't know how?"

I shook my head. Was I supposed to know how?

"You really don't know how to drink? God. It's just like drinking water or soda or your mom's sweet tea. That reminds me, do you think you can ask her to make me a gallon of sun tea when we're allowed to see each other again? Anyway, it's no big deal. Seriously, Ash. Drink."

"But, I mean...how do I mentally prepare myself to drink?"

"Mentally prepare yourself? Seriously?" Spencer could have kept picking at me, but she took my question seriously. "Okay. You need to...well...this is hard for me to say."

"Hard to say? Really? I've never known you to find something that's hard to say," I mused, but I let her continue to think.

Finally, she looked me brightly in the eye. "Okay, now, I normally don't tell people this, but since you're _kind of _my best friend,"—this was said with a smirk—"I'll tell you. When I'm about to drink, I think about something that makes me mad. Something I want more than anything else but I know I can't have."

I took the glass from her hand and held it by a shaking hand. I tried to think about what she said, but it was so hard. It was harder than it should've been.

"Look me in the eye, Ashley," she said softly. "Think about it. What's something you want and can't have? Something you dream--."

"Please don't make me say it out loud, Spencer," I interrupted. She knew what I was thinking about. I knew what I was thinking about. There was no point in hurting myself more than absolutely necessary.

"It's okay, Ash," she whispered. She took the glass from my hand and tipped it back into her mouth. "That's enough for me."

"One shot?" I asked. She usually drank profusely, from what I had heard from everyone in town, even her.

"Yeah. You drink as much as you need to," she said, handing me the bottle and laying down on her back with her knees bent.

I didn't even think about what I was doing; I just turned the bottle up to my mouth and drank as much as I could hold before swallowing. It burned my mouth and throat and veins, but I drank some more. Spencer tried to get me to stop, but I couldn't. I drank until neither I nor the bottle had anything left.

-

It's so dark. She would like walking around right now, and I wish she was here. The air around me has warmed up, so I can't see my breath anymore. But unlike Spencer, I like the fog in front of my face.

It is proof that I'm alive.

-

"What kind of drunk are you?" Spencer asked with a slur. It was an hour or so later. After an argument about the fact that I drank all of the vodka, even after she told me I could, she had rummaged around in her bag to find a half-empty bottle of whiskey.

"I don't know what types of drunks there are in the world," I said after thinking about it for a moment.

"There's the sad/quiet drunk. The mad/quiet drunk. The raging/mad drunk. There's the 'I'm in love with every person in sight' drunk. And my personal favorite, the drunk who vomits giggles."

I laughed and rolled over to face her. I took a long blade of grass and touched it lightly to her face, traced her features. She chuckled and snatched it away.

"You're lucky," she said and glanced my way. In pure thoughtlessness, she ripped the blade of grass to tiny bits. It was a nervous habit of hers. "Usually, when I drink whiskey, I'm one of those raging, angry, bitter drunks. You're lucky I'm not a bitch right now. Anyway, what kind of drunk are you? I can't tell."

"Spencer, I _love _you," I joked and lay my hand on her cheek. Well, I wasn't joking. But she thought I was.

"Oh, you're one of _those_, huh?"

Before I knew it, we were both heaving with laughter, and it didn't stop until we were sobering up around sunrise. In a still slightly tipsy daze, we pushed the bike back home. We couldn't afford to have another crash and be separated for seven more days. After all, neither of us can live without the other.


	7. Chapter 7

About that time was when I decided to stop caring. Now, I know I promised to tell Spencer's story and not worry so much about mine. But here's the thing. If I hadn't become so apathetic towards every aspect of my life, a lot of things in Spencer's story wouldn't have taken place, and if they did take place, they would have been different. I changed her, and I hate myself for it.

There were three more softball games left in the season, and Spencer and I were on our way to an away game. Kyla was driving, because she's always loved softball and she's always tried to support me in whatever I do, and Spence and I were sprawled out in the backseat of her car. It seemed like we were in that spot a lot back then, because neither of us drove, and Kyla was our favorite chauffer. We were halfway to our game, which was about an hour's drive away from home, and all of a sudden, I dreaded our arrival at the softball complex.

"Turn around," I commanded Kyla and hoped she would realize I didn't mean it in a rude way. "I don't want to play."

"What?" I honestly don't know who said it, but it might have been both Kyla and Spencer.

"I don't want to play anymore. Will you turn around, please? Let's just go home and watch a movie."

"Ashley." Spencer said. Her voice was patronizingly quiet and too much like my mother's to make me happy. "This is one of the biggest games of the season."

"I don't care, Spencer."

"Since when?" Kyla asked while looking at me through the rear view mirror. She kind of seemed apathetic towards the matter too. She didn't care, she was just curious as to why, all of a sudden, I didn't either.

"Right now. Turn around, please?"

So we turned around, and they made it a little bit easier for me to stop caring.

-

"I'm a liar," I mumbled into Spencer's neck one night after drinking too much. She was holding me up, even though she was a lot smaller than I was, and with one hand she attempted to pull my muddy t-shirt over my head. Finally, with no help from me, she had stripped me of my old band shirt and replaced it with a shirt from her mother's family reunion seven years before. I fell backwards onto her bed and squirmed around to cover myself with as many blankets as I could grab.

"Did you hear me?" I asked as she settled in beside me and brushed muddy hair out of my face. You can ask where all that mud came from, but I honestly don't remember. That might have been the night I got into a fight with two of Spencer's old cheerleading friends, but maybe not. That night is a little fuzzy to me these days. "I said I'm a liar."

"I heard you," she laughed. "But I don't think it's true."

"Oh, yeah? Why is that?"

"Well, darling, if you claim to be a liar, how can I trust you when you _say _you're a liar?" Interesting point, huh? She was always interesting when we were wasted. Sober, too.

"Oh, I am a liar. But trust me, I would never lie to you," I reassured her and placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. "Never."

"Tell me the truth, then."

"What truth?"  
"Any truth," she said softly. I could tell she was getting more tired, which was understandable, seeing the fact that she had had to practically babysit me for hours while I drowned my embarrassment with liquor. Yeah, that was the night I had gotten into the fight with her two former friends. I remember the sting of my soon-to-be black eye as she continually pushed hair out of my face—her hair or mine, I don't remember. It was hard to tell where she stopped and I began, and where I stopped and she began. It was hard to tell a lot of things.

"Anything that's true?"

"Yeah, tell me something real."

"I once ate an entire pecan, including the shell," I said without allowing myself time to consider her request.

She grinned and crinkled her nose. "I once ate a handful of marbles."

"I've never broken a bone in my body."

"I broke my arm by falling off of my great aunt's roof."

"I used to dream of being a preacher until my brother told me that only men can be preachers. I haven't prayed ever since."

"I used to have a crush on your brother."

"I run when I'm upset. Last week, I ran for seven miles without stopping."

"I run away from everyone who cares, except you."

"I often think that nobody cares."

"Maybe nobody does," she said, her voice fading away into sleep. "But I try to. Honest."

I'm a liar, but trust me, I would never lie to you.

-

I woke up three hours later. Spencer's arm was snaked around my waist and her eyes were looking deep into my own. To be honest, I had never felt that comfortable in my life, but as soon as she realized I was awake, she jerked away. She rolled onto her back and focused on a picture of Dolly Parton that was hanging on her ceiling. I tried to speak but I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what I was thinking.

It wasn't the first time that I felt so empty. It wasn't the last.

"What are you thinking?" Spencer mumbled without taking her eyes off of Dolly.

I swallowed hard. My mouth was dry. "I'm thinking I need to tell you something."

I watched her nod. She closed her eyes suddenly and darted her tongue over her bottom lip. "I probably need to tell you something as well."

I sighed more loudly than necessary. "I don't know where to begin, Spence."

Spencer rolled over to face me again and put her arm around my waist to pull me closer. Just before falling asleep, she mumbled into my hair. "I don't either."

-

"Wake up, sleepy head," Spencer said as she tugged on my foot. She was sitting, wide awake, on the floor beside the bed. It was the next morning and I had a massive headache. Spence knew I couldn't stand being woken up, but she liked to mess with me anyway.

"What the hell are you doing?" I groaned. "It's like five in the morning."

"No, babe, it's eleven," she chuckled. "And to answer your previous question, I'm painting my fingernails."

I looked at her with the softest of smiles on my face. "What color?"

"Silver. Would you like me to paint yours?"

"Only if you paint them blue."

"Of course," Spencer said, and proceeded to paint my nails a very sparkling shade of silver.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked again.

"Painting your nails. Chill out."

I chose not to say anything to her. I didn't mind having silver nails, as long as she was happy about it.

-

Spencer had a tattoo on her right hip. It was a small hot pink star with a black outline around its edges. It was so small that I think we both forgot it was there most of the time. But one summer night, Spence and I were laying out by her pool. She was wearing a bikini and I was wearing board shorts and a tank top. We had been swimming all day and finally decided to climb out of the water and lay on the damp concrete.

"Hey," Spence said after a while of silence. She lifted up her phone to show me the time. "It's 11:11. Make a wish."

"Heh, no thanks," I said. "I'm not big on wishing on time."

"And why not?" She feigned disappointment.

"It passes too quickly. I'd rather make a wish on something permanent. Something I can count on."

"Well, I guess you're out of luck then," Say said with a sigh. "Nothing lasts forever."

"Not true," I said with a smirk. "I could make a wish on your star tattoo."

Say grinned and gave me a nod. "Do it. I dare you."

I closed my eyes dramatically and thought of a wish. Of course, I had known what I would wish for all along. The same thing that I wished for every time I got the chance, as corny as that sounds. When I knew Spencer was watching me closely, I sat up and leaned over to kiss her tattoo softly. Her breathing hitched and I noticed her hand move to my shoulder. She wasn't pushing me away but she wasn't drawing me closer either. She wasn't sure what she wanted, or at least that's what I assumed at the time.

With a sigh, I pulled away and turned around to sit on the edge of the pool with my feet hanging in the water. Moments later, I felt Spencer sit beside me. I didn't look up to see her, but I knew she was there.

"Ashley." She said softly, shortly. "What's wrong?"

"I still don't know where to begin," I said slowly. I looked down at my hands in my lap, almost feeling ashamed of myself, of what I was feeling, or maybe of the fact that I didn't know how to explain it to her. We had always been honest with each other, but I couldn't begin to tell her what I was going through.

"Penny for your thoughts. What are you thinking at this exact moment?" Spencer said. Her voice was getting softer but her mouth was getting closer to my face, so dangerously close.

"I'm thinking..." I shut my eyes, clinched my jaw. "I'm thinking I'm in love."

Without looking, I knew Spencer was leaning back, away from me. Her voice sounded tired and in pain. "Who is it, Ash? You know you can trust me."

I turned to face her, and once again, our mouths were dangerously close. "It's...Spencer, it's...it's complicated."

She blinked three or four times in a row. She got nervous when she saw I was as well. "It's only complicated because you let it be. You make it complicated."

"Then tell me how to make this simple."

"Just...Well, I don't know..." she was leaning forward, causing our foreheads to touch slightly.

"What do I do to make it easier, Spence?"

"Just kiss me," she mumbled, but she was already closing the gap between our lips, closing the gap between being friends and more than that, closing the gap between who we were and who we were about to be. Her hand cupped my cheek and I ran my tongue over her lips, begging for entrance. She parted her lips slightly, and for a second, my tongue darted against hers. She let out a small whimper and I backed away.

She didn't say anything as I pulled away from her and jumped into the cold pool. She didn't say anything as I swam back and forth for an hour, letting out steam. She didn't say anything as she finally dove into the pool and found me in the dark water. She didn't say anything as she laced her fingers in mine and pressed her lips firmly to my own.

It turns out that wishes on star tattoos can come true if you let them. If you don't make it too complicated.


End file.
